Clicker remotes help with classroom involvement

A student response system, otherwise known as "clickers," are a new tool for learning in a large classroom setting. The clickers, which look similar to TV remotes, are used for answering questions in large lecture halls. Students can answer surveys, take quizzes, or manage attendance using them. IU already has several professors who have used them in the past and many more who want to have them better established on campus.\nIn April of 2004, The New York Times interviewed IU professor Melissa Wilde regarding her use of clickers in her lectures. As a sociology professor, she found them very useful to anonymously gather very personal information such as income, religion, political affiliation, and then use that as a springboard for productive class discussion.\n"For 20 or 30 minutes, they got really fired up," Wilde said. "Basically I get them doing sociology on themselves," she added.\nProponents argue that clickers create a more active learning environment, one where students are more engaged. They also feel that assessment of student knowledge and understanding is better defined and quickly achieved with this system.\nProfessor Caty Pilachowski used them in the spring of 2004 for her Introduction to Astronomy lecture with 225 students. She feels it's difficult to engage the students in a big lecture hall because the course is so mathematical and the department doesn't have the AIs in order to have labs.\n"It adds excitement to the course," she said.\nAlthough, she added, "I didn't find this to be as useful as I'd like ... But these issues can be resolved."\nOne such issue is that often times the clickers won't register that an answer had been submitted. They were infrared, like remotes, and couldn't handle a large volume of clickers at once. There are now radio frequency systems, which fix this problem.\nStudents purchase clickers and then register them with a code that is given to them along with the clicker. The professor then downloads their information to his or her system and the clicker can only be used with systems that accompany the registration.\nThe cost of the clicker is $15 with a $15 registration fee per semester of use.\nBiology professor Susan Hengeveld used the clickers in the fall of 2004 and will use them once again this coming fall semester. She made use of them in her Evolution and Diversity lecture of nearly 300 students. \n"I had no problems," she said. She asked questions as part of her everyday teaching strategy. "(It) gave me a lot of feedback on whether the students are understanding the material." Asking the questions and then later looking at the percentage of votes also gave her a good idea which ones we're good questions.\n"It breaks up the lecture. With 300 students it's hard to have a discussion," Hengeveld said.\n"It gives me a mechanism to ask concept-oriented questions ... which gives them exposure to questions that will be on the test."\nHengeveld is, however, going to put a new statement in her syllabus for next semester that states, "Anyone who is caught with two remotes will be turned in for academic misconduct." She has not personally experienced a problem with this but a friend of hers who teaches at Purdue has had numerous problems. \nShe also used this system to take attendance in order to help grade with pluses and minuses at the end of a semester. This method made her attendance "astronomical," something that would not have been possible in her situation, a large lecture course without help from AIs. She felt she taught better and the overall class average was higher compared to the previous semester.\nJoan Middendorf of Instructional Support Services said she's considering using the clickers.\n"We're really just beginning to figure out whether or not to adopt them based on research," she said. "We're starting to ask deeper, more sophisticated questions (regarding whether or not to adopt this into the curriculum)."\nShe added that the technology doesn't actually matter that much, it's what professors do with it that is important. Middendorf would like to have professors decide to get the systems to help address problem areas, not just because they're fun.\nThe Information Technology Policy Office (ITPO) and the Administration are currently talking about the possibility of adopting the clicker system. The bookstore will also start discussing this option early next month.\nSupporters on campus hope to see the selection of a vendor by the fall and begin the first phase of standard implementation by the spring of 2006.